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Language proficiency refers to what tasks learners are able to accomplish in the language. As they improve, they’re able to understand and communicate more and more, on successively complex topics and with increasing accuracy as well.
Contrary to popular belief, increasing language proficiency isn’t only a matter of decreasing errors, nor is error reduction the primary goal of language learning. Language acquisition is a complex process that stems from having opportunities to use the language in functional ways.
Just as you wouldn’t expect someone to learn to play a sport by only studying the rules of the sport and not getting to touch the equipment or enter the playing field for fear of them making a mistake or “learning it wrong,” language learners need opportunities to hear and use the language in meaningful ways to develop proficiency.
The main ways in which learners encounter and interact with language as they develop proficiency are input, interaction, and output. They also need opportunities to develop intercultural communicative competence. Each of these areas is explained separately in the Science of Languages.
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